


Tricked by a Sweet Twist

by jks_microwave



Series: Black Cat Magic [3]
Category: ATEEZ (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Werecreatures, Angst, Black Cat Choi San, Black Cat Jeon Jungkook, Black Cat Jung Hoseok, Bottom Jung Wooyoung, Cheating, Choi San is bad at feelings, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Human Choi Jongho, Human Jeong Yunho, Human Kang Yeosang, Human Kim Hongjoong, Infidelity, M/M, Minor Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa, Rebound Sex, Soulmates, Top Choi San, Were-Cat Jung Wooyoung, Were-Cat Park Seonghwa, Were-Cat Song Mingi, not between Woosan, please protect wooyoung he's doing his best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:40:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27624178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jks_microwave/pseuds/jks_microwave
Summary: Were-Cats are becoming more and more common in today's society, and San lives and breathes through his Black Cat variant status. Black cats are known to wander, and San has an earring affixed to his ear with the other half supposedly attached to his soulmate. He's not bothered, though.Able to use black magic, San's main job is taking on customer requests to cast hexes on those that wronged them, but for a price. One such request comes from a young woman who believes her boyfriend, Jung Wooyoung is cheating on her.San's the man for the job ... that is, until he realizes that Wooyoung owns the other half of his soulmate earring.
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Jung Wooyoung/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Black Cat Magic [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1961227
Comments: 22
Kudos: 202





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well holy shit. Here's my first ATEEZ fic that I wasn't planning on writing. 
> 
> This is in the same universe as my TaeKook!Were-Cat pair of stories, though you don't need to read them to know what's going on here. There are some references but if something's not clear, please feel free to ask! :D 
> 
> Title is from "Black Cat Nero" because yes, I am basic.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> San gets a hex job from Hoseok and it seems simple enough. Find this guy named Jung Wooyoung, and see if he's actually cheating on his girlfriend. Find proof one way or another and cast the hex if so, or if not, tell the client they were wrong.
> 
> There's just one problem. Wooyoung has the other half of San's soulmate earring.

San lived to subvert stereotypes.

He practically vibrated at the idea of turning someone’s idea of what he should be, what someone that looked and sounded like him should do and turn it on its head. The look in someone’s eyes when he didn’t meet their expectations, when he surpassed or went completely around them was something he wished he could bottle and huff when he was having a particularly hard day. It was a rush, and honestly, one of the few things that made him feel alive.

Were-Cats weren’t particularly uncommon anymore, more and more of his kind were becoming bold, flaunting their changeling status and entrenching themselves in all facets of the world. Many of them were politicians, activists, entertainers, teachers, literally anybody could be a Were-Cat and the tide was beginning to turn towards acceptance. It helped normalize it, that so many of their kind were popular and influential, and that most of the ones that could transform were house cats. Made it easier for people to get used to it if they could change into cute little cats. There were a smaller percentage that could shift into Big Cats, but not too many. There were plenty who didn’t like their kind, of course, but San didn’t really care. He knew what he was and he loved it.

Whereas society was getting begrudgingly okay with Were-Cats as a whole, they were _not_ okay with the Black Cat variant. Witchy, clad in black and practitioners of black magic, it was everything that society hated. Atypical, non-conforming, defined by something they couldn’t control. Society really didn’t like anything they couldn’t cram into a pre-defined role, and they especially didn’t like San who lived and breathed his Black Cat status.

There was a fair bit of truth to the Black Cat’s curse, though it came in the form of being able to use varied means of black magic: hexes, potions, transfiguration spells, the list went on and on. San was able to cast hexes and carved out a nice little niche business for himself where he took on clients that wanted those who wronged them to be punished. It ranged anywhere from pranks to legitimate punishments for infidelity, theft, etc. If someone could be hurt by it and subsequently want revenge, San was their man.

He’d been trained in the art of hexes by probably the sweetest person alive, a 23 year old Black Cat named Jeon Jungkook. San had never really met another Black Cat that could do what he could before he happened upon Jungkook at a halloween party. He knew he had to be taught by Jungkook when he saw the other man smoothly and boldly hex A-List Actor Yang Jaehwa, the asshole ex-boyfriend of Jungkook’s boyfriend, supermodel Kim Taehyung, without anybody being the wiser. Prior to meeting Jungkook, San had survived on instinct and sheer willpower, figuring out what he could do and what he couldn’t by trial-and-error, but he mainly used it for a good time.

Jungkook showed him how to use his magic to help others.

Through Jungkook, San had met Jung Hoseok, a Black Cat older than Jungkook by two years, and someone who San thought was the literal embodiment of the sun. Hoseok was the intermediary between Jungkook and his customers, a layer of protection to make sure that Jungkook wasn’t unfairly targeted. It also helped maintain a level of separation so that Jungkook didn’t get attached to or influenced by his clients; hexes could be influenced by the caster’s mood, San learned, and if for example he was more sympathetic to the target than his client, he couldn’t cast a hex worth shit.

Which is the exact predicament that Choi San found himself in at that moment, standing with an emotionally distressed young man named Jung Wooyoung in a University dorm room right as San was supposed to hex him. How exactly he got into that particular mess required some backtracking.

[FOUR MONTHS AGO]

An urgent phone call from Hoseok brought San to supermodel and Tiger Were-Cat Kim Taehyung’s sky rise apartment, where he found himself sitting on a couch that cost more than San realized there was money in the world. He regarded his Black Cat hyungs with a confused expression while holding a cup of coffee that was picked from the himalayas or some shit.

“I need you to take this client off Jungkookie’s hands,” Hoseok explained, taking a sip of coffee himself, “he’s too soft and he won’t be able to do it.”

“Hyung!” Jungkook protested. “I can do it.”

Hoseok shook his head. “I know you, Jungkook. You’ll get attached to this guy inside a minute and the customer’s directions were really clear. She’s convinced her boyfriend is cheating on her and wants him hexed with a truth spell. You’re going to get too involved and it’s going to be a mess.” Jungkook huffed and burrowed further into his giant black hoodie, grumbling. “That’s where _you_ come in, Sannie. You don’t have any feelings.”

“ _Rude_.”

Hoseok smirked. “What I mean, is, you can get close enough to this guy to see if he’s cheating or not and hex him if he is. Don’t think I didn’t hear how you managed to convince Seokjin-hyung to let you work at Moon’s kitchen despite not knowing one knife from another.”

San rolled his eyes as he waved a tattooed hand. “It worked out _fine_. But all right. What’s this job that marshmallow-hyung couldn’t do?”

“I’m _not_ a marshmallow,” Jungkook muttered, brows furrowed.

Hoseok took a picture out of his bag and handed it over to San. It appeared to be a student ID photograph, the young man’s face front and centre in the frame, his dirty blond hair slightly wavy due to a perm and San could see he had more earring holes than earrings; it made sense if this was his student ID.

“This is the guy. Seems nice enough but you and I both know that a smile can let you get away with a lot. You gotta track him and see if he’s actually cheating on her and not, like, he’s trying to propose or something. If he’s a cheat, get proof and do the hex. If not, get proof and we’ll tell the client to pound sand.”

“No problem!” San promised, nodding firmly. “I’ll be going now, hyungs.”

“Ah, before you go,” Hoseok interrupted, reaching out to flick at San’s earring. It was different than the other ones, made out of white gold with a simple hoop with a broken heart charm dangling from it. “Did you find your soulmate yet?”

San’s brows furrowed. “Soulmate?”

“Yeah, soulmate,” Hoseok repeated, flicking the earring again and earning a slight whine of irritation from the youngest of the three Black Cats. “That’s what this is. You’ve seen mine, and you’ve seen Jungkookie’s. That means each of us has a soulmate. I’ve told you this a thousand times.”

San sighed and dramatically draped himself over the older Were-Cat. “But Hobi-hyung you said that _you_ weren’t _my_ soulmate so what does it matter?”

Hoseok rolled his eyes and flicked San right between the eyes. “I’m being serious.”

“Seriously, no,” San replied, flopping back on the couch. “You and Jungkook-hyung might have found your ridiculously handsome and perfect soulmates, but there isn’t someone out there like that for me. And that’s fine! It’s too much of a hassle looking anyway.”

Jungkook snorted. “Knowing San, they’ll run him right over and he wouldn’t even know it.”

“ _Rude_.”

Hoseok snickered and ruffled San’s hair. “Keep an eye out. Black Cats like to wander and fate gets fed up waiting for us to sort our shit out. So they take the initiative and give us soulmates.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m going to get going now, though. No rest for the wicked.”

This would be a piece of cake though; the guy didn’t look like he was going to be much trouble at all. He was cute; shame he was straight. Well, no. That wasn’t fair; San wasn’t one to assume anything about anybody’s sexuality. He definitely had bright eyes, San noticed, coloured with a honeyed brown and a fleck of green. Maybe a Were-Cat? Was he a Lion? Cheetah? Maybe he was a tabby. That’d be cute.

Ah, he’d figure it out.

He quickly bowed to Jungkook and Hoseok, making his way out of the apartment. It didn’t take long at all for San to get onto campus, even with a pitstop to his little apartment to switch up his clothing. Luckily for him, the spring semester was about to start, giving him ample excuse for appearing at such a weird point of the year. If all else failed, he could use the excuse of picking up a few supplemental courses while holding down a job.

In a sea of burnt orange and blues that were the University’s colours, San stood out clad entirely in black. He licked his lips, running his tongue over the lip ring that pierced his bottom lip on the left side. Maybe in another life he’d be one of these kids, running around stressing about papers and assignments. But for now, he was a man on a mission.

And that mission was coming right at him: Jung Wooyoung, English Major with a double minor in History and Political Science. Age 21, and he was …

 _Fuck_.

… He was the owner of the other half of San’s earring.

San had been standing in the middle of the pathway like an idiot when he’d caught sight of the other half to his own soulmate earring, so it wasn’t any surprise at all that Wooyoung crashed into him like a freight train. The other boy, was, of course, expecting San to move like a normal person, not stand there like a dingus.

“Oh, sorry!” Wooyoung exclaimed, reaching out to steady San, who hadn’t moved an inch. “Hey. I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before. New student?”

Given the size of the campus, it was more likely that there were more people Wooyoung _didn’t_ know than he did, but San was not going to let a chance like this go. “Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I wasn’t expecting to get lost this easily.”

Wooyoung let out a heavy sigh and nodded. “I still get lost,” he admitted. “I’m heading to Building 105 for English 224, Shakespeare. Wanna come? The admin building is on the way.”

“Oh, English 224?” San could be a good parrot when he needed to be. “That’s where I’m going. Do you mind if I tag along?”

“No problem! I’m Jung Wooyoung.” Wooyoung stuck out a hand, grinning.

“San, nice to meet you,” San returned, shaking the younger man’s hand. “Thanks for letting me tag along. You’d think I’d remember everything from the five second tour but…” he shrugged.

Wooyoung grinned. “You got even less of a tour than I did and I woke up late.”

And that’s how Choi San found himself following Jung Wooyoung to a building he was not supposed to be in and in a class that he was not enrolled in. Not the first time he pretended to be a student, but it was definitely the first time that he was here with the intent of spying on someone in front of their face. Within minutes of meeting him, San was positive that Wooyoung couldn’t keep a secret to save his life; he was an animated chatterbox, something the long-suffering professor seemed to have made his peace with but would use to galvanize discussion.

“Mr. Jung, what are your thoughts on our hero, Brutus?” the professor asked, almost bracing himself for the answer. San thought it was hilarious.

Wooyoung chewed on his lip and leaned back in his seat. “I don’t know. I think he’s an idiot.”

The professor blinked. “What?”

“I mean,” Wooyoung started, moving forward so he was leaning hunched over his desk, hands moving. “The guy has no idea how a conspiracy works. These guys and his buddy Cassius are planning to _murder Caesar_. What does he think that they’re going to be all honourable and stuff for? Of course they’re all scoundrels!”

“ _Scoundrels?_ ” San echoed in disbelief.

Wooyoung turned to him, bringing San into the conversation without advising him. “Yeah, I mean. If I asked you to join a clandestine conspiracy, would you think I was honourable?”

San blinked. “I’d think that it was impossible for you to keep it a secret.”

Laughter bubbled throughout the class, the tension of having to speak in class publicly dissipating like steam. The discussion flowed from there, students who were previously shy to voice their thoughts now emboldened to join the conversation. San was honestly impressed; he wondered if Wooyoung did it on purpose to ease the anxiousness that permeated the classroom before his startling answer.

“Thanks for playing along during lecture,” Wooyoung said, pulling his messenger bag’s strap over a shoulder. “Everybody gets so nervous when the discussion starts that Professor Kim likes to use me to break the ice and get everybody loosened up.”

So it was on purpose. A smile came to San’s lips and he nodded as he followed Wooyoung out of the classroom. “I don’t think I’ve seen someone have such a comfortable relationship with their professor.”

Wooyoung laughed, bright and loud, his eyes crinkling. “Professor Kim’s the only one I’d want teaching me English; he makes it so much fun. A lot more stays inside my head if I can associate jokes and stuff with it.” He blinked as his pocket vibrated and he looked down at his phone, his expression suddenly getting cloudy.

“…everything okay?” San recognized the name on the text ID - it was the customer.

For a long moment, Wooyoung didn’t respond, instead firing off a response that said ‘on the way to class’ before locking his phone and slipping it into his pocket. “We just met, I don’t want to bother you with it.”

“I mean, isn’t that better?” San asked, tilting his head. Confused, Wooyoung turned to look at him, his eyes wide and … hopeful? San couldn’t look Wooyoung in the eyes for too long; it was like looking into the sun. “Uh, I mean, I don’t know you so I wouldn’t have these preconceived notions about you or whatever’s going on. Like, I’m objective, right?”

That wasn’t the smoothest way to offer to help, but sue him, he wasn’t expecting something relevant to happen for a couple weeks. Wooyoung looked pensively at his phone again before looking at San, as if weighing the options. “Do you… ever wonder if people are telling you the whole truth sometimes?”

Now _that_ … wasn’t what San was expecting to come out of Wooyoung’s mouth. “That’s a loaded question,” he commented, buying himself the time to choose his response carefully. “Everybody has a reason to play some things close to the vest, but … it depends on the context.”

Wooyoung fell silent, his lips pursed as his jaw tightened. His fingers clenched around the phone, his brows furrowing together. “I just… there’s this feeling I can’t shake. About someone I should really trust wholeheartedly…”

“Family?”

“…No. Girlfriend.”

San sucked on his teeth, wincing sympathetically. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, gently guiding Wooyoung so they were closer to the walls and not impeding the steady flow of students. “You don’t have to tell me any more than that. It sounds complicated.”

“Yeah,” Wooyoung mumbled, sliding his phone back into his pocket. He leaned back against the wall, his head touching a poster for the Debate team. Eventually, Wooyoung broke his staring contest with the fluorescent ceiling light and turned to San. “Just… answer me something?”

“Sure, if I can.” San tried to make his posture open and welcoming, but being casual enough that it wasn’t going to send the wrong signal to Wooyoung. Body language was everything, people picked up on it even if they weren’t consciously aware of it. “But if it’s about Julius Caesar, I know jack and shit about him.”

That got him a tiny, crooked smile from Wooyoung, one that shot a metaphorical arrow right through San’s evasive heart. He tried to ignore it and focus on what the other man wanted to ask him. He was here on a job, goddamnit. “Hypothetically speaking, if you thought someone was hiding something from you … what would you do to … figure out what it was?”

“You’re going to hate my answer.”

“Please don’t say ‘it depends’.”

San absently licked at his lip ring, not missing how Wooyoung’s eyes followed the movement. “It depends,” he answered finally, at least having the grace to look a bit sheepish. “On how big you thought the thing they were hiding from you was. A birthday present? Probably not worth the investigation. Cheating? Bigger and worth a conversation.”

Wooyoung frowned and looked away, seemingly more interested in the vending machine behind San than the conversation. “What if you don’t know what it is and it’s just a hunch?”

“Wait it out and see, I guess,” San suggested, rubbing his neck. “If you have no idea what’s bugging your gut instinct like that, it’s not a good idea to go in guns a blazing, y’know? I guess … just keep an eye out for anything weird? — Sorry, man. I know this is unhelpful as hell.”

“No, no…” Wooyoung shook his head. “That’s… I’m the one that started it.” He gave San a small smile. “C’mon, let’s go to the campus coffee shop. I owe you a coffee or something for listening to me whine about my problems when I’ve known you for… under four hours.”

San grinned roguishly. “If it helps, I feel like I’ve known you all my life.”

Wooyoung snorted. “Yeah, we’re regular soulmates.” San hoped he was more subtle at covering the way he choked on air than he felt. “You okay there?”

“Never better,” San managed, grinning weakly.

What a fucking mess he was in.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> San starts to get entrenched in Wooyoung's life, meeting his inner circle of friends ... and starts to get attached.

It was distressingly easy to slip into Wooyoung’s immediate social circle despite not having a legitimate reason to be on campus, San found. Everyone was so busy keeping their heads above water with assignments, part-time jobs and their hobbies to keep themselves sane that the addition of a new person to the seven member friend group barely disrupted the flow. In fact, it took about a month before the other six realized that San actually real and not a collective hallucination.

San was a loner by his Black Cat nature, but it was surprisingly nice to meet Yeosang, Yunho, Hongjoong, Seonghwa, Jongho and Mingi. They all seemed to gel really well, joking, fighting and roasting each other like they were family. Through various bits and pieces of conversation San found out that there were actually a couple of Were-Cats in the group: Mingi was a lion, Seonghwa a snow leopard, and Wooyoung was a bengal cat.

It honestly explained a lot about Wooyoung’s energy levels and how noisy he was.

“Didn’t think I’d find other Were-Cats here,” San said, popping a fry from Wooyoung’s lunch into his mouth, much to the other’s yelp of protest. “I guess, statistically, it makes sense given how many people go to school here.”

“Pretty obvious that Mingi’s a lion, given his loud mouth and wild hair,” Yeosang snickered, earning himself a playful shove from the much larger man. “What about you, San?”

San blinked. “It isn’t obvious from the _everything_ about me?” He looked down at what he was wearing – a form fitting black sweater with thumb holes, a pair of black skinny jeans, old black converses. Paired with his litany of earrings, his lip ring, bright purple eyes and tattoos, he thought it was obvious he was a Black Cat.

Yeosang hummed and pretended to think about it. “Black panther?”

San crossed his arms across his chest briefly. “Wakanda forever, but no.” He reached over to grab another french fry, only to be smacked over the back of the hand by Wooyoung. “ _Rude_.” 

“You’re stealing _my_ food,” Wooyoung protested.

San snorted. “Eat faster, then. But to answer your question Yeosang, I’m a Black Cat.” He’d been braced for their negative reaction, but instead of hesitation and fear, the other seven men looked at him with wide eyes. “…what?”

“You’re serious? You’re a Black Cat?” Hongjoong asked, swallowing his bite of sandwich. His eyes were wide, but not afraid. 

Getting a little worried at their reaction, San nodded. While he would have liked to remain as a part of the friend group, he knew that he could just as easily get his proof by slinking around in his cat form. “Do you… want me to leave? I know… a lot of people are weirded out by that…”

“Bro, are you kidding?” Mingi grabbed him into a tight hug, grinning. “That rules! I always wanted to meet another one!” He lowered his voice. “What kind of magic can you use?”

San blinked. “Um, hexes. I mean … it’s called black magic for a reason, but I’m trying to find ways to use it for good.” He pulled up his right sleeve, pointing at a couple of his tattoos that went along his toned forearm and bicep. “These are glyphs, like … they were done with special ink that helps me control my magic.”

“Yah, Wooyoung! What’s the matter?” Hongjoong asked, as if smelling blood in the water, “you’ve never seen tattoos before?”

Seonghwa gave Hongjoong a light shove as a bright blush shot across Wooyoung’s tanned cheeks. “It’s not exactly common.” He looked over at San. “Are they all to help with your magic?”

San shook his head. “Nah, a lot of them are just to fill up the space. The magic ones are at magic pressure points - arms, chest, back, thigh.”

“ _Thigh?_ ” Wooyoung choked on his water.

A devilish grin curled San’s lips as he waggled his eyebrows. “Wanna see?”

Before Wooyoung could answer, a young woman appeared at the side of the table, dressed stylishly in a fitted t-shirt and fashionable jeans, her long brown hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. The air shifted as soon as she appeared, and San was quick to notice it. “Hey,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Did you forget about me, Wooyoungie?”

San blinked and looked questioningly to Seonghwa who was having a difficult time keeping his expression blank. Finally giving pity on him, he replied softly, “that’s Lee Sooyun, Wooyoung’s girlfriend.”

Judging by how Seonghwa went out of his way to sound diplomatic despite saying the bare minimum, San was certain that Seonghwa wasn’t exactly a fan of Sooyun. He quietly nodded his thanks and turned back to where Sooyun was tugging on Wooyoung’s hoodie’s sleeve. “Remember we’re going out for my birthday tonight at _Moon_ ,” she said. “I’m going to come over early so we can fix your outfit.”

Wooyoung’s eyebrows knitted together. “Fix it? I haven’t even picked it out.”

“I know,” Sooyun giggled, tapping his nose with her finger. “Just making up for the last time. I’ll be over at 5, okay?”

“Um, yeah. Okay,” Wooyoung said, nodding slowly. “—ah, sorry. Sooyun, this is San, he’s a new transfer in this semester.”

San raised a hand in greeting. “Nice to meet you.”

Sooyun tilted her head slightly and gave him a thin, somewhat strained smile. “Oh? It’s nice to meet you. How did you meet Wooyoungie?”

“He ran me over outside,” San replied with a little laugh, popping another French fry into his mouth. Sue him; they were delicious. “In his defence, I was standing in the middle of the walkway, lost like an idiot.”

“Oh, how funny,” Sooyun said, though nothing in her expression said she found it amusing. She tilted her head to Wooyoung. “I’ll be over at 5, okay? Be ready by then~” She kissed his cheek before heading off, rejoining a group of girls that looked like they ought to be on the cover of VOGUE Korea.

San waited until silence covered the table. “She seems nice,” he offered. The air was definitely awkward, and he had no idea what to say; it was a first. “—wait, did she say _Moon_? The restaurant owned by Kim Seokjin, famous model and fashion designer?”

Wooyoung sighed softly and rubbed his face. “Yeah, she’s wanted to go there forever but it’s always booked up like months in advance.”

“That’s pretty expensive for a birthday dinner,” San said, impressed. “You know Seokjin-hyu — I mean, you know Kim Seokjin?”

If Wooyoung heard his slip-up, he didn’t say anything about it. He seemed distracted by what had just happened. “It took some doing to get reservations, but that’s not really the problem…”

Mingi made a face. “Yeah, it’s how she feels entitled to your money, man.” He got a warning look from Hongjoong at that, but didn’t seem to regret what he said.

“It’s not my money,” Wooyoung mumbled, “which makes it… no, it’s…” He shook his head. “It’s her birthday. We should be going out somewhere nice.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to take a power nap before my Poli Sci class. I’ll see you guys later.”

Hongjoong frowned thinly. “Okay, want me to swing by and grab you before class?”

Wooyoung gave him a relieved smile. “Yeah, that’d be great, hyung. Thanks.” He nodded to the others before shucking his backpack up over his right shoulder and walked off.

“I take it that it’s complicated,” San said finally after silence settled back over the group.

Yunho sighed and rubbed his neck. “There’s just this weird vibe about her when they’re together,” he said. “Little things that feel off, you know? But Woo really likes her. And she hasn’t done anything awful or mean to him, so if we say something, it’s going to sound like we’re assholes. She’s fine, really. Could be a lot worse. Just…”

“It’s a gut feeling?” San supplied, watching as the others nodded. “I gotcha.”

“You feel it, though, right?” Jongho asked quietly. “That something’s weird?”

San hummed thoughtfully as he pulled out his phone. “Yeah,” he admitted. “But all we can do is be there for Woo; if he needs us, he’ll say something. I haven’t known him as long as you guys, but…”

Seonghwa nodded. “You’re right. We’ll be there for him, no matter what happens.”

San winked. “Like a regular after school special.” He opened the messages application on his smartphone, thumbing down until he hit the thread he needed.

SAN: <Hey Seokjinnie-hyung. Do you need help at the restaurant tonight?>

SEOKJIN: <Sannie! You have impeccable timing. One of my waiters came down with a cold and we’re short-staffed. Can you make it here for 17:00?>

SAN: <I’ll be there with bells on.>

~ * ~

 _Moon_ was the pride and joy of Supermodel and Fashion Designer Kim Seokjin, and one of the few restaurants in Seoul that boasted a Michelin star. San had somehow managed to find his way into working into the kitchens - he wanted to see if he could do it - so he was relatively familiar with the restaurant. Seokjin seemed to be utterly fascinated with Black Cats, and while Jungkook had been somewhat hesitant to be pet by the older man in his cat form, San had no such hang-ups. If he was honest with himself, San was a bit of a slut for cuddles while he was human _and_ when he was a cat.

Carefully, San removed his lip ring and placed it into a little case, tucking it away and placing it in his messenger bag that he then put into a locker in the employee area. He looked at himself in the mirror: he was the picture of a handsome young waiter, his tattoos mostly covered minus the ones that covered the back of his right hand. Seokjin had reassured him that hot young tattooed guys was all the rage and he would be fine. If he wanted to get himself a sugar mama or daddy, that was fine too - all he had to do was give Seokjin 5% of his allowance as a ‘finder’s fee’.

In short, Seokjin ruled.

It wasn’t difficult at all to get himself assigned to Wooyoung and Sooyun’s table, which made San wonder how people thought they couldn’t get away with things. It was so _easy_ to manipulate things to how he needed them to be and he didn’t even need to use magic. This would be an abuse of power if San was a terrible person. Luckily, for the world San was a saint.

Well, sorta.

The hostess glanced over at him as he walked over, right on time for his shift to start. “Jung, party of two has just been seated at Table 26.”

“Thank you, Iseul-noona,” San said with a dashing smile. Iseul wasn’t impressed. “Is there anything I need to know? Things I shouldn’t mention?” With _Moon’_ s high society clientele, it wasn’t a strange question to ask. “Things I _should_ mention?”

Iseul looked at her notes. “Jung Wooyoung is the son of Jung Taeyang and Jung Yunhee, they own JTY - a very successful jewellery business with multiple locations across Seoul. I wouldn’t mention any of this to the son; he seems sensitive about it. Use your common sense and you’ll be fine. His date is celebrating her birthday, so we’ll be adding a complimentary dessert to their meal.”

San nodded. “Thank you, noona.” He took the menus from her and winked, heading over to Table 26. “Welcome to _Moon!_ My name is San and I’ll be your waiter. I understand we’re celebrating a birthday tonight?”

Wooyoung’s head snapped up and he stared. “ _San?_ What are you doing here?”

“I work here part-time. Gotta hustle to make that tuition money,” San said with a little laugh. “It’s nice to see you and Sooyun again. Can I get you two anything to drink?” He placed the menus down on the table, his movements smooth and delicate.

Sooyun was pouring over the drink menu, her eyes bright. “The _Epiphany_ please.”

(Jeez, the signature cocktail? It’s like $500. Maybe I should find myself a sugar daddy and/or mama,) San thought, but smartly kept his mouth shut. “Of course. And for you, sir?”

“It’s so weird to hear you calling me _sir_ ,” Wooyoung muttered to himself, a wry smile on his lips. “Not bad, though; maybe I should make you say it more often.”

“It’ll cost extra now. Just for you.”

Wooyoung smirked slightly. “I’ll have the same thing as Sooyun, the _Epiphany_ ; I’ve heard good things about it.”

Lightly, Sooyun hit his arm. “It’s a girl’s drink!”

“Drinks have no gender,” San explained lightly, smiling when she glanced at him in surprise. Well, that was a bit uncalled for; he had to get himself in order. “I’ll also bring some waters by. Please excuse me.” He bowed and headed off towards the bar to input the drink orders.

The rest of the evening was surprisingly uneventful. San played the part of an attentive waiter, paying particular attention to the interactions between Sooyun and Wooyoung, and found more of the same micro aggressions that the others had mentioned previously. Nothing obvious and nothing egregious, but now that San was looking for it, he could see it in everything she did. A part of him was beginning to wonder if the request should have been the other way around, but it was still too early to tell. It was probably some residual nonsense from his soulmate earring.

He had a job to do.

When he made his way back to the table to bring over Sooyun’s complimentary birthday dessert, he saw that Seokjin was there, greeting Wooyoung and utterly dazzling both him and Sooyun. With a wry smile, San walked over and gave the world famous supermodel a light nudge with his elbow.“Would you like to sing happy birthday to the young lady instead, sir?” he asked, amused.

Seokjin let out a peal of laughter, slapping San’s shoulder. It was a thoroughly inelegant sound, but it was Seokjin’s purest laugh, and honestly, San loved to hear it. “That is a gift only for the closest of my inner circle, Sannie! Something so priceless can’t be given away for free, you know!”

“Mm, but if it’s priceless, that means there’s no price and therefore free, right?” San asked, winking at Wooyoung who tried his best to hide his smile.

Another crack of laughter shot through the restaurant as Seokjin doubled over, leaning completely on San, something that made San laugh as well. “You hellion!” Seokjin jokingly scolded, pinching San’s cheek. “Well! It seems I’ve worn out my welcome here so I will leave you in Sannie’s capable hands! Have a lovely evening and happy birthday, Miss. Lee!” he bowed with a flourish and disappeared into the restaurant.

San gave Wooyoung and Sooyun a bright smile. “You’re quite lucky! Seokjin-hyung doesn’t come and say hello to just anybody!” He set the cake down in front of Sooyun and lit the candle. “Make a wish~”

Wooyoung looked up at San while Sooyun made a bit of a show trying to think of the best birthday wish. “You’re that close with Kim Seokjin?”

“He’s kind of adopted all the wait staff,” San joked, laughing. “I’ve never really had a family, so it’s nice to have a big brother figure, you know?”

Before Wooyoung could say something, Sooyun made a squeal of excitement as an idea came to her and she blew out her candles. “What did you wish for?” Wooyoung asked instead, turning his attention back to his girlfriend. A fond smile creased his lips, and San tried to ignore the strange pang that constricted his chest. If his ear could stop feeling as if it was about to burn off so he could focus, that would be _great_.

Sooyun giggled and hid her face behind her hands. “It’s silly!” she whined. “Besides, if I tell you, then it won’t come true!”

“Okay, okay, keep your secrets,” Wooyoung laughed, his eyes crinkling as a wide smile split his lips. “San, sorry about this. Do you mind grabbing the bill for us?”

“I live to serve,” San said with a forced smile, bowing deeply and disappearing towards one of the POS machines, pulling up Table 26’s orders and printing out the bill. He paused, looking down at the exquisite font choice for _Moon_ ’s title, his thoughts straying to the earring that was continuing to feel like it was about to burn a hole through his ear.

He had a job to do. He had to figure out what the hell was going on between Wooyoung and Sooyun. Why did Sooyun wanted to hex Wooyoung in the first place? She told Hoseok that she thought Wooyoung was cheating on her. Granted, San had only known Wooyoung for a month, but he seemed to be allergic to doing the wrong thing. He sighed and rubbed his eyes gently; San knew as well as anybody that people weren’t 100% good or 100% bad, they were a messy mixture of both. Hoseok must have thought the same thing, how strange the request was, and that’s why San was here – to figure out what was going on one way or another. He had to agree with Hoseok on one thing though: this was not Jungkook’s forte.

Quietly, San slipped the bill into a leather bifold, closing the cover and bringing over a portable terminal to process payment. He put on his best smile as he returned to the table. “Here we are. How will be paying?”

“Credit card,” Wooyoung replied, handing the card over. Their fingers brushed as San took the card, and he tensed briefly as a shock shot through his system. He quickly recovered and went through the motions of processing the payment, handing over the proper copies and bowing deeply. “Thank you, San. Everything was perfect tonight.”

San smiled. “Glad to hear it. Have a good evening you two.” He gave them their space to finish their date, watching from the bar as the pair soon shared a soft kiss and left the restaurant. As San returned to the table to clean up, he felt like he was having an out of body experience, watching as he set the table back how it was.

He had a job to do, he reminded himself as he finished his shift that night, changing out of his waiter’s uniform and back into his normal clothing. As much as he wanted to continue tailing Wooyoung as a human and be his friend, a part of him knew he had to follow Sooyun too. Hoseok wouldn’t have given him the instruction to find out what was happening one way or the other if he didn’t think something funky was going on too.

Flopping on his thin mattress in his shoebox apartment, San stared up at the ceiling fan, a pitiful looking thing that wobbled as it spun. Idly, his slender fingers reached up to touch his soulmate earring, wishing to the Fates that it could fall off or something and leave him the hell alone. His soulmate had someone else and San was being paid to hex him. Never mind that the request in and of itself was weird; the whole thing was a mess that San didn’t want to be a part of.

But he was in it now. And he was in _deep_.

~ * ~

Citing an uptick in shifts at _Moon_ to explain his inconsistent absences, San decided to take his investigation into a different direction in the following months. In his Black Cat form, San made his way across campus, stopping periodically for pets from girls and boys alike, leaning into their touch to earn higher pitched coos and more enthusiastic pets; man was he a slut for pets. He would swish his tail, long and furry, with his soulmate earring affixed like a tail charm. No matter how hard he tried, San couldn’t remove the earring and so, learned to deal with it.

There wasn’t anything particularly interesting he’d found in the following three months, other than Wooyoung and Sooyun being stupidly cute and all it brought San was an increasing desire to poke his eye out with his chopsticks. Especially as in the subsequent months, San found himself almost attached to the hip to Wooyoung. He was entrenched in Wooyoung’s classes except for one or two (just so it didn’t seem suspicious) and he was getting too comfortable.

It was currently partway through month two of his investigation, and San was sitting in Wooyoung’s dormitory on his _bed_ , listening to Wooyoung recite a passage from _Macbeth_ , as they were all tasked with memorizing a soliloquy from a Shakespeare play and act it out like actors fighting for the main role. Wooyoung had chosen ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’ from _Macbeth_ , and San had chosen the infamous one from _Hamlet_.

“You can’t seriously be telling me that’s the accent you chose to go with for your presentation,” San said, aghast.

Wooyoung stuck his tongue out. “What’s wrong with this accent? It’s _British_.”

San threw his hands up in the air. “Macbeth was _Scottish!_ ” he exclaimed.

“Oh you try, then!” Wooyoung threw the book at San, who deftly caught it. “Mr. I only need to show up for a few classes and still be doing better than me!”

“What can I say? Some of us were born smart,” San jokingly taunted, flipping open the book. “All right, let’s see here…”

He cleared his throat, straightening up on the bed and adopting a very serious, very conflicted expression. Not that his Scottish accent would be any better than Wooyoung’s, but he had thrown down the Gauntlet and San was nothing if not competitive.

“She should have died hereafter;  
There would have been a time for such a word.  
— To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,  
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,  
To the last syllable of recorded time;  
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools  
The way to dusty death.  
Out, out, brief candle!  
Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player  
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage  
And then is heard no more. It is a tale  
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury  
Signifying nothing.”

He had opted for what he hoped was a very soft Scottish accent, which sounded rather odd with his heavy Korean inflections, but San powered through until he finished the very last line. He looked up from the book, and caught sight of Wooyoung’s eyes, wide and filled with something that San couldn’t immediately identify. Whatever it was, Wooyoung’s gaze pierced right through the walls San had thrown up haphazardly, finding his heart yet again.

“You goddamn goth drama kid!” Wooyoung exclaimed, tackling San down on the bed. “Why do you have to show me up like that?!”

Struggling against Wooyoung’s wiry strength, San exclaimed loudly in protest. “You told me to!” He quickly turned into a cat, slipping out of Wooyoung’s grasp and leaving him clutching air. San landed on the floor and stuck out his little tongue.

“Oh, you think you can get away with that?” Wooyoung challenged, shifting into his Bengal cat form, chasing after San. San let out a surprised yowl and took off out of the dorm, Wooyoung hot on his heels. He couldn’t have imagined what it looked like, two small house cats darting down the halls of a dorm, but the only thing on San’s mind was getting ahead of Wooyoung. He was able to do it, too, until he ran smack into Hongjoong’s legs.

The impact hindered him long enough for Wooyoung to barrel into him and tackle him in triumph. They tousled against Hongjoong’s and Seonghwa’s feet, a yowling mess of play-fighting. Hongjoong blinked and looked up Seonghwa, who placed a hand over his eyes with a long-suffering sigh. The taller of the two bent down and picked up both San and Wooyoung by the scruffs of their necks, bringing them up to his eye level.

“What do you two think you’re doing?” Seonghwa asked tersely, his lips pursed.

San and Wooyoung looked at each other before giving Seonghwa twin sheepish kitty grins.

The third month was much like the second and first, and San found himself looking forward to any chance he got to speak with Wooyoung alone. Most of their conversations involved the others during whatever breaks in their classes that could constitute lunch. San somehow managed to skirt the lines so much with his professors that he convinced them that him not being on the attendance roster was a mix-up with the registrar. By the time that the academic bureaucracy figured out that San wasn’t really a student, he would be done with the campus.

The idea wasn’t agreeable with his heart, which bad begun to make its presence and feelings felt every time San found himself catching Wooyoung’s gaze. It was particularly painful as since Wooyoung realized that they were roughly the same size in their feline forms, asked - no, _demanded_ \- that San join him for naps in Wooyoung’s dorm as sleeping next to another Were-Cat was more comfortable than sleeping alone as a human.

One such time Wooyoung insisted on this was during a humid day at the onset of summer, which was difficult in and of itself for the student body; it was hard enough to study for University finals in general, but when the weather was beautiful and calling everybody to spend it outside? It was cruel. But not as cruel as San being pinned on Wooyoung’s bed by the Bengal cat, the other’s body sinewy and long, but powerful, and San was going to be the little spoon whether he liked it or not.

The problem wasn’t that he didn’t like it. He _did_ like it. He liked it a _lot_. The problem was that he _shouldn’t_ like it.

Wooyoung smelled like warm spices with a hint of flowers on a bad day, but as a cat, and with San’s stronger sense of smell as a cat, it was pure torture. It was bad enough that he had found his soulmate when he was very adamant that he did not want one, but now he was such good friends with his soulmate that he couldn’t stand to be away from Wooyoung for more than a couple days.

Maybe he could trick himself into thinking he could survive with being Wooyoung’s platonic soulmate. San could remember Jungkook telling him that Taehyung and his manager, Jimin always called themselves platonic soulmates. Maybe it was possible. Even if… even if Jungkook’s soulmate earring was with Taehyung, and Taehyung didn’t have one with Jimin… it was still possible, right?

Fuck.

San whined softly and burrowed closer against Wooyoung, desperate for the other Were-Cat’s touch, even though he knew more than ever that he had to try to wean himself off on it. This was only going to get worse, and San knew that he should pull away, he should put some distance between him and his _hex target_. But as Wooyoung snuggled closer, nuzzling just under San’s chin in a way that was common between Were-Cats who were very close friends, San felt all his strength to fight against it evaporate into thin air.

San wanted him so badly it hurt.

~ * ~

The charm on San’s tail chimed softly as he tupped throughout the busy campus, trying to find the spot where Sooyun and her girlfriends usually had lunch. He sat down in a huff when he couldn’t find them, his tail swishing in annoyance. He tilted his head, watching as a sea of disenchanted students flowed past, his purple eyes glinting in the midday sun. Soon, a shadow fell across him and he blinked; it was Sooyun.

“I’ve been seeing you around a lot lately, little kitty,” she said, reaching down to tap his little nose. “Well. You can keep me company.” Sooyun held out her hand to San, seemingly not making the realization that San was the Black Cat she hired. He wasn’t about to dissuade her from her assumption; this worked out to his advantage. He made a show of leaning forward to sniff at her fingers and turned up his head, but remained where he was. “Oh, you little brat.” Sooyun huffed. “Fine, be that way.” She looked at her watch. “He should be soon here anyway.”

Was she talking about Wooyung? San had heard from Hongjoong that they’d be in the library working on a debate outline for their Political Science class. Maybe he was going to cut it short to meet with his girlfriend. Nothing weird about that, he supposed. He wasn’t going to stick around and watch them be lovey-dovey, though. Hesitantly, San pushed him up to stand on all fours, curiously poking at Sooyun, making extensive use of the power he had as a ‘stray cat’. He was then suddenly caught up in her arms and let out an annoyed yowl.

“Got you!” Sooyun giggled, rubbing his head. “Your fur is so soft… that’s almost rude. I’ve been seeing you around so much lately. Have you been trying to find me?”

She wasn’t totally wrong.

“Hey, Soo. You ready to work on the… on the project?” came a male voice. The guy sounded confused, and understandably so: Sooyun was sitting cross-legged on the grass, cuddling a stray black cat with a strange charm affixed to its tail. It must have looked strange. “That your cat?”

Sooyun giggled and pushed herself up without using her hands – quite an impressive feat – and snuggled San close. “He’s a little friend. Let’s get going Junseo,” she said with a bright smile. “Don’t want to lose this precious free time.”

And that was how Choi San found himself being carried off campus by his unsuspecting customer and some guy named Junseo. He wondered if Sooyun knew that San was the Black Cat handling her request and that’s why she was bringing him along, but if that was the case, she wasn’t letting on anything about it. That was just fine with him; he was not going to let a chance like this to see what Sooyun was doing when left to her own devices.

Remembering Wooyoung’s conflicted eyes on the first day they met, San stiffened in Sooyun’s arms. It hurt more than he thought it would to see someone like Wooyoung so upset, especially when he looked at Sooyun with such fond eyes at her birthday dinner.

Ugh.

He had to stop this.

He had a job to do.

Squirming around in Sooyun’s tight grip, San found himself being taken off campus in a modest looking car, with Junseo not driving to anywhere in particular. It seemed like the drive was the point. “What are you even doing with that cat, Soo?” Junseo asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I went through a lot of work to catch him so I thought I’d keep him with me,” Sooyun said with a giggle. “I think he likes me. Besides, we have more important things to talk about. I don’t have a lot of time before I have to go and meet Wooyoungie.”

Junseo snorted. “I can’t believe you’re still doing this, Soo. Just cut the guy loose.”

Sooyun shook her head. “Not before I get that hex cast on him. I need to know what the code is to the small vault for the store in the south side,” she explained. “The only way he’s going to tell me is if he’s got a truth spell cast on him. I need it before they start inventory.” She pursed her lips. “We need the money, Junseo. We can’t get out of this stupid city without it.”

“I know,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “You should’ve done this earlier. That guy doesn’t deserve this though; I thought you broke up with him already.”

Sooyun huffed. “Do you know how long it’s taken me to get this far? I had to go through so many background checks and interviews before I could meet his parents!”

“Do you even know how you’re going to do this without getting caught?” Junseo asked, sparing a glance at San. “Are you gonna use the cat?”

San meowed at him.

Sooyun waved a hand. “I have a plan. I just need confirmation that the Black Cat I hired cast the truth hex on Wooyoungie and how long it’ll last then we’re set. I have everything else figured out. You don’t need to know right now – plausible deniability, right?”

“Sure.”

The car stopped and as soon as the door opened, San shot out of the car like a bolt of black lightning, disappearing into the busy streets of Seoul. He dipped into a dark alley, slowing down to a stop behind a collection of milk crates. San jumped up to the top crate and sat down heavily, a little sigh escaping his furry mouth.

He had a choice to make: does he tell Wooyoung what’s happening and hope to the Fates that Wooyoung trusts him enough to go along with his plan to prove this? Or does he talk to Hoseok and Jungkook and see what they say?

Before he could realize what he was doing, San jumped off the crates and made his way towards Wooyoung’s dorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure it's fine


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> San tries to tell Wooyoung about Sooyun, but a homemade gift from his soulmate sends him off track. So far off track that he decides to take matters into his own hands.
> 
> The fates were cruel, but not as cruel as San was to himself. He could get what he wanted so badly... but only for a night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a fourth chapter as this was going a bit too long to fit into 3 chapters. Please enjoy!

He’d repeated what he was going to say about a thousand times as he shifted to his human form, continuing to move without breaking his stride as he makes it to the campus grounds. By this point, he knew exactly where Wooyoung’s dorm was, and knew his schedule better than Wooyoung himself did. He should be there, using his spare period to study for finals like any poor University student would be.

With his heart in his throat, San knocked on the door. He heard Wooyoung’s distracted “open~” from the other side and he swallowed, opening the door. He had to do this. 

“Hey, Woo, there’s something—”

Wooyoung’s eyes light up as he hears San’s voice and he launches himself off the bed, wrapping his arms around the other man. “I’ve been waiting for you!” he said excitedly, pulling back from San enough to go rummaging through his drawers. “Shit, where is it?”

Confused, bamboozled and led astray by the sudden shift in conversation, San could only stare with a slack jaw. “Hasn’t Seonghwa-hyung told you every other breath to clean up your stuff? You’re so lucky you were able to get a single dorm.” Judging by what he knew about Wooyoung’s family, it wasn’t perhaps so much luck as a combination of that and the resources at hand.

“Shut up,” Wooyoung muttered, digging around until he triumphantly held up a small box. “I was hoping to have this done earlier, but between finals and other stuff, I’ve only been able to make this on my breaks at work.”

“…Huh?”

Wooyoung turned around and opened the box, holding up the lower half so San could see its contents. Inside, San’s breath caught in his throat and his heart threatened to beat out of his chest as his eyes fell upon a pair of bracelets, both made with circular metal beads spotted with one diamond apiece, with the centrepiece of both being a half of a crown. One pair was made out of black metal, the other with a darker gold metal, with the crown halves being the same bright yellow gold colour. The crown halves were spotted with small, multi-coloured diamonds.

“Woo, what is… what is this?” San asked, his throat suddenly as dry as a desert. Summer in Seoul was sweltering, and San felt like he was about to shatter into dust, not melt into a puddle. His head swam with panicked thoughts and instead of voicing them like an idiot, he kept his mouth shut and looked at the other boy with wide eyes.

The boyish smile that graced Wooyoung’s lips shot another bullseye to San’s heart, joining the thousands of others that had accumulated there over the last four months. “Friendship bracelets. I’ve made them for the others like years ago, but I didn’t make one for you! These ones are a little different…” A slight blush coloured his cheeks and Wooyoung put a hand behind his neck, embarrassed. “I think… this is … it’s weird, but I feel closer to you than the others, you know? You just seem to get me better than everybody else; you play along with my dumb jokes, and you’re into the same stuff I am but … you’re your own person, too. You’re not weirded out by my family and everything, and I feel like… I could tell you anything.”

Wooyoung was only a few feet away from him. San could just reach out, pull him close and take the risk. He could do it. Wooyoung was _right there_. But San was rooted to his spot, staring with wide eyes at the beautiful present resting on black velvet in the jewelry box. “These… you made this… for m-me? For us? They… they’re… friendship bracelets? F-Friendship bracelets are made out of thread and dollar store charms, Woo… these look like they co-cost a fortune. I can’t accept something so expensive…”

“What’s the point of being the son of the two best jewellers in the country if I can’t make use of my skills? They’re paid for, don’t worry about it,” Wooyoung said, excitement taking over. He plucked out the black beaded bracelet, tugging San over after he placed the box down on the bed. Never were Wooyoung’s fingers defter as they fastened the bracelet to San’s left wrist. “Hah, perfect fit. My eye for this stuff can’t be beat.”

San swallowed thickly, desperate to moisten his drying throat. “Woo… this is… thank you. This is… this is the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.” Quick to get to his tears before Wooyoung saw them, San rubbed his eyes with his free hand, using his sweater’s sleeve.

“H-Hey, don’t cry! You’re going to make me cry,” Wooyoung faux threatened, affixing his own bracelet to his left wrist. “Look at that! Now we’re official best friends.” He grinned, pressing his wrist to San’s, matching up the two halves of the crown. “I don’t know what your schedule’s like next year but I wanna keep hanging out with you, San. Even when school’s all over and we’re going to be boring-ass adults, I want to stay connected to you. We might drift apart because of our lives, but … I guess, I want to feel close to you somehow. You know? Sorry. I’m rambling.”

“Sap,” San managed, swallowing again. A true, genuine, sweet smile crossed San’s lips and despite himself, he reached out for Wooyoung, wanting to pull him into the tightest hug he could. There was something in the back of his mind, nagging him. He had to tell Wooyoung something. Something very important.

But in that moment, the only important thing wanted was Wooyoung’s arms around him. So he stayed. He stayed in Wooyoung’s dorm, helping him study and listening to him rant about the unfairness of the professor not giving them much of a clue about what the final would be structured like, only ‘it’ll encompass everything you’ve learned this semester whatever the fuck THAT means’.

San could listen to him talk for hours.

He sat there, watching Wooyoung animatedly move his hands, explaining concepts about jewelry creation and stone qualities that San didn’t really understand, but was happy to listen to. San wasn’t sure why he stayed so long, why he infringed on Wooyoung’s time so much, but deep down, his heart was screaming at him: _soak up as much of him as you can; time’s running out. He’s not yours. The whole reason you know him is a lie._

Maybe this was why San never wanted to meet his Soulmate; he knew something like this was bound to happen. There was a reason why Black Cats were bad luck but people didn’t realize that the bad luck hit them the worst.

Later, long after he’d left Wooyoung’s dorm, San sat on the roof of an abandoned building in an industrial district, the cool summer breeze playing with his hair and curling around his wrist. The twilight breeze seemingly hugged San’s friendship bracelet, the handmade gift from his soulmate - something that San would treasure for as long as he lived. As San stared out at the glittering lights of Seoul, he pulled his smartphone out of his pocket and chose a favourited contact. The call rang out twice before Hoseok picked up.

“ _Hey, I was wondering when I was going to hear from you_ ,” Hoseok said, chuckling. “ _How’s the investigation going, Sannie?_ ”

San pulled the black cherry lollipop out of his mouth, his lips stained dark red. He’d quit smoking roughly around the time he met Wooyoung and instead transferred his oral fixation to a candy habit. “Tell the client that the job’s done. I’m … gonna take a break after this, hyung. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to take jobs again. Thank you. — Love you. Tell JK-hyung I said hi.” Without waiting for Hoseok’s response, San ended the call and slipped his phone back into his back pocket.

He’d cast the dice, now he had to wait to see where they landed. Quietly, as San looked out at the slowly awakening skyline of Seoul, he made peace with the fact that where those dice landed… likely involved Wooyoung not being in his life.

The Black Cat’s curse.

~ * ~

It happened sooner than he thought. He’d gotten a message late one night from Wooyoung that contained only a voice clip that said ‘please come’. San had never heard Wooyoung’s voice sound so broken, so sad, and despite his better judgment, San was on his way as soon as he heard how upset his soulmate was. It was late, probably close to midnight when San made his way into Wooyoung’s dorm building, using his agile feline body to get in where a normal person wouldn’t be able to.

Quietly, San knocked on the door, his heart in his throat. He ran over what he was going to say in his head. He was going to apologize, he was going to come clean, and he was going to tell Wooyoung that he was going to disappear from his life. That was the easiest way to do everything. Be honest, be quick, and leave before he hurt the nicest guy he’d never met even more than he already had.

The door was unlocked, San found, and he quietly slipped in, closing it behind him by twisting the knob and holding it, so it didn’t loudly click. He released the knob quietly and pressed a hand to the door to make sure it stayed shut before walking over to where Wooyoung was in the middle of his room. “Woo—”

Suddenly, and with all the force that he had when they first met, Wooyoung threw his arms around San and hugged him tight. Silence stretched until a broken sob escaped Wooyoung and the floodgates had opened, filing the room with the sound San hated most in the world - Wooyoung in pain. Swallowing, San slowly reached up and wrapped his arms around the younger man’s shoulders, letting out a faint wheeze when Wooyoung’s grip tightened even further.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before Wooyoung’s death grip on him loosened, his sobs fading into soft, shaky exhales, his tears imprinted on San’s black t-shirt. “She was using me,” Wooyoung whispered finally, his voice shot. Every word tightened around San’s heart. It was already in pieces, now it was just getting ground into fine pieces of dust. “She… she wanted the pass code for the vault … i-in one of our stores. She was gonna … she was gonna lift … some of the loose gems… t-the ones she knows … a-are just a little … the … they’re…”

“Easy,” San whispered, brushing his thumbs against Wooyoung’s tear-stained cheeks, wiping the droplets away, “go slow.” He knew what the other man was going to say, but he knew how important it was for Wooyoung to get there himself.

Silence hung in the air before Wooyoung pressed his face against San’s worn-out _TURBO_ band t-shirt. “T-There’s… imperfect stones, that we can .. that we sometimes use for … we can … grind them… smooth them out and use them as accessory pieces, but … it takes a while and so they’re just in a pile, in a box, y’know? If … a handful went missing, no one would really know. We don’t count them for inventory.”

San forced his brows to knit together. “She wanted these loose stones?”

“…Yeah,” Wooyoung admitted, the admission seemingly too much and he let out a soundless sob, shaking his head against San’s shoulder. “I told her I couldn’t tell her… she seemed so confused. She was mad. She said … why didn’t it work? I don’t understand, what she was talking about… she kept saying something about …” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We’re done. I didn’t k… I didn’t know who to talk to, I just … sent that to you. Sorry. I just…”

San’s heart leapt from his stomach to his throat. It was practically vibrating with the news that his soulmate was free. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I know how much you liked her.”

Wooyoung tightened his hold on San’s hips, shaking his head. “I don’t know… how I couldn’t see it… was I just too stupid? Did I just… risk everything because someone like her was into someone like me?”

Narrowing his eyes slightly, San pulled back and put his hands firmly on Wooyoung’s, his blunt fingernails lightly digging into the material of Wooyoung’s loose t-shirt. “Someone like — Woo, you’re the nicest person I’ve ever met. You’re also the loudest and the weirdest, but … like, you’d probably cut your own pinky off if you accidentally stole a candy bar from a convenience store.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know Sooyun very well, but if she valued money over someone like you, someone who … Woo, you didn’t even blink when I told you I was a Black Cat. You pulled me, this mangy, stray, goth weirdo off the walkway and into your friend group, with people you’ve known since you were a baby! With no hesitation! You …” he shook his head again, trying to keep himself composed. “You gave me the family I never had with Hongjoong-hyung and the others! How could someone like you not be worth it?”

Wooyoung stiffened in San’s arms and for a brief, terrifying moment, San wondered if he’d gone too far and just ruined any chance he had of keeping Wooyoung in his life. Which was stupid, considering that he was going to find out that San was supposed to hex him and it was going to shit anyway. “Sannie…” Wooyoung whispered, his golden brown eyes scrutinizing everything about San’s face, his brows knitting together, his soft, pink lips pursing as if he’d just found the answer to everything. “M’sorry for calling you so late… just to hear me cry about a breakup and …”

“You could call me for anything,” San blurted and inwardly flinched; this was not the way to cut ties with the soulmate he didn’t get to have, Choi San you _dumb fuck_. “I don’t really … have a sleep schedule, so if you need to talk to someone or just ask me if Hamlet and Horatio really were fucking at Wittenberg, then—”

Of all the ways that San had imagined, alone in his shoebox apartment of how he’d be kissing Wooyoung for the first time, it wouldn’t have been when the other man was in tears and freshly broken up with his longtime girlfriend. It was quite possibly the worst way that it could’ve happened; this wasn’t the right way to do it. This wasn’t … how he wanted to kiss Wooyoung, how he wanted to have him pressed up against him.

 _He isn’t yours_ , a nasty little voice said, breaking through San’s thoughts, _He won’t be yours later, but he’s yours right now._

San felt the breath punch out of his lungs as Wooyoung’s hands tightened on his hips, his fingers sliding underneath the worn material of his shirt. “For anything?” Wooyoung asked, breathless against San’s lips, tainted with the lollipop he shouldn’t have been eating so late before he got Wooyoung’s message. “Even if … I ask you for something … really weird? Something… I probably shouldn’t? But it’s … it’s what I want, right now?”

San swallowed. “That depends.”

The Black Cat could feel a laugh huffed out against his flushed neck, and San bit his lip, idly worrying at his lip ring. He stopped as he felt another tongue - _Wooyoung’s tongue, holy shit_ \- lightly flick at the curved ring of metal. “I hate it when you say that,” Wooyoung muttered.

“Just say what you want already,” San choked out, feeling as if his soul was being pulled out of his body every single time Wooyoung flicked his tongue out to trace the curvature of his lip ring.

Wooyoung didn’t answer right away, instead sliding his tongue past San’s cherry-flavoured lips, moving with the same type of reckless abandon he exuded in his life. “I want you to fuck me, San. I want you to make me forget all of this… make me forget _her_. Please?”

A soft groan left San, his heart clenching at the sensation that finally, finally, he could do this. He could have Wooyoung. He could hold him as tightly as he wanted, even if it was for just now. The smarter part of him screamed that this was only going to make it worse; San was never going to forget the fleeting moment that he had his soulmate in his arms. It was stupid, it was foolish.

A stronger man would say no, would come clean and follow through on his original plan. Wooyoung was vulnerable, putting his whole heart out on the table and a stronger man, someone San _should_ be, would cradle that heart and protect it honourably.

But he was weak.

Hoseok had asked San to do this _specifically_ because he ordinarily wouldn’t have gotten so attached to his target. He could make anyone fall in love with him and let him in close enough to learn everything he could about Wooyoung, and hex him if he really was cheating like the client said. But what had San done? He’d gotten attached, and worse yet, fallen so far and so hard for his target, his _soulmate_.The Fates really were cruel.

“Are you sure about this?” San whispered, his hands reaching up to cup Wooyoung’s cheeks, flushed from the tears and a little puffy. He knew the younger man would say he looked ugly, but in that moment, San couldn’t think of anybody more beautiful. He pressed a kiss to the dried tear tracks that ran down Wooyoung’s cheeks. “You have to tell me you are, Wooyoung… I can’t…”

He wasn’t prepared to meet the younger man’s eyes, even less so when Wooyoung’s eyes were dark with desperation and need. Need for _San_. “Very sure,” Wooyoung whispered, capturing San’s mouth in a deeper kiss, turning them around towards the bed. “San, tell me you want this too…”

God, he really had no idea how badly San wanted this. If it were literally any other time, San would have been thrilled that he was able to hide his feelings that well. “ _Yes_ ,” San whispered, diving in for another kiss and grunting softly as he hauled Wooyoung onto the bed in an impressive show of strength. He stood up on his knees on the bed, tugging off his band t-shirt and tossing it to the side, revealing the swath of black ink that curled up from his left hip to his right shoulder. It looked like a gothic flourish of exquisite artwork on the best canvas of all, San’s skin. 

“I’ve always wanted to see these,” Wooyoung whispered, his touch nearly reverent as he passed his fingers over the ink. “But I really want to see the ones on your thigh; I know you were trying to get me to crack that day…”

San huffed out a laugh, one that was cut off as Wooyoung’s cold fingers coasted over the black ink, but he knew the touch wasn’t staying reverent when his soulmate’s fingers rubbed against his nipples. “Ah! There’s… nothing there for you to admire, Woo…”

“I beg to differ,” Wooyoung muttered, tossing off his own shirt before pulling San down for a deep kiss. “But enough talking, I need you to fuck me.”

“If you manage to stop talking, I will,” San murmured, taking his chance to swirl his tongue against a choice spot on Wooyoung’s neck. “I guess I’ll just work hard to make you moan instead.” The greedy part of him was beginning to win the more he tasted the other were-cat, the desperation of making this late night worth something, knowing he’d never experience it again. He took Wooyoung’s lips in his again, slow and deliberate with the grind of his hips, delighting in each and every shaky moan that tumbled from his soulmate’s lips to his.

Jungkook and Hoseok might have been able to get their happy endings with their soulmates, but it wasn’t for San. And that was fine. He was going to make this count. Everything Wooyoung wanted from him, San was going to give him. This was going to be something to hold against his chest in the days to come.

“Do you even have what we’d need?” San asked softly, trailing his kisses down from Wooyoung’s swollen lips to his neck, nipping perhaps a bit harsher than he intended but if it gave him the breathless gasps from his soulmate… he wouldn’t stop.

“Nightstand,” Wooyoung breathed, arching up against San’s lips on his chest, leaving a trail of love bites below his neckline. It was greedy, San knew, to mark up a boy that wasn’t his, but he couldn’t help it. They were too far gone now, he’d gotten the permission he craved to give Wooyoung everything he deserved. “Hurry, San…”

“Easy,” San whispered, gently running his hands along Wooyoung’s toned abdomen. He wasn’t cut like San was, but this was better somehow. He was soft, smooth, and for tonight, he was _San’s_. Moving off the bed so he could rummage through the drawer, he found what he needed in the second drawer. The Black Cat ignored the lump that was forming in his throat as he threw what he needed onto the bed. He caught Wooyoung’s gaze and smiled wolfishly.

“Q-Quit looking at me like that.”

San raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

Wooyoung looked away, a blush colouring his cheeks in the pale light of the moon that streamed in from the window. “Like you want to eat me whole.”

A small smirk curled San’s lips, the silver of his lip ring glinting in the moonlight. “I _do_ want to eat you whole.” Now this was the part he was really looking forward to; with his other partners, San loved to take them apart with his fingers, watch them writhe and lose themselves when he hadn’t even gotten his cock in them yet. It was exhilarating that he could give that kind of pleasure to them, and the idea that he could give that kind of pleasure to _Wooyoung?_

San was going to savour this.

He moved slowly, almost languidly, slid his hands down Wooyoung’s torso to his sweatpants. His long fingers slid beneath the waistband, hooking in beneath the elastic of Wooyoung’s CK boxers. As San moved back onto the bed to get into a better position, he slid the offending layers of fabric down and kissed every single bit of exposed skin that greeted him. His kisses got particularly biting when he reached Wooyoung’s hips, very pointedly ignoring the one spot that the writhing Bengal were-cat above him wanted him to focus on.

“You’re gorgeous, Woo, you really are,” San said softly, his touch reverent. “I’m going to show you just how special you are. Ready?”

“Please,” Wooyoung whined, his eye screwing shut as cold air wrapped around his flushed body. “ _Please_.”

(How can I say no to you?) San thought, forcing himself to breathe evenly through his nose as his eyes briefly fluttered shut. His soulmate earring glinted in the light, jingling as San settled between Wooyoung’s slender thighs. The snap of the bottle of lube’s lid seemed to crack through the stuffy silence of the dormitory room, almost bringing reality crashing down on them. “…love, have you done this before?”

Wooyoung gulped and nodded. “Been a while, though.”

That’s all he needed to hear. Gently, San bent down and pressed a loving kiss to the inside of Wooyoung’s right thigh, rubbing it with a broad hand. “I’ll take care of you. But… tell me if it feels bad, okay? Hell, tell me if it feels good. I’m going to make sure you don’t forget this, Woo.”

“I trust you, Sannie.”

San gulped and hoped his longish black hair obscured his face enough. (You shouldn’t have,) he thought darkly. An obscenely loud squelch of the lube being squeezed out onto his fingers filled the room, with San testing the waters so to speak by rubbing his middle finger against Wooyoung’s rim, his eyes flicking up to the other boy. “How’s that?”

“More.”

“Now?”

“San!”

A small smirk curled at San’s lips and he devilishly bit at Wooyoung’s meaty right thigh, sucking and licking until there was a nasty red bruise beginning to form. Deep groans punched out of Wooyoung’s throat, his back arching and his hips lifting off the bed as San continued marking up his thighs as he worked him open. San always prided himself on being one hell of a multi-tasker, and it felt like he was preparing for this moment.

Feeling particularly brattish, San finally stopped dancing around where he wanted his fingers to go, pressing up against the most sensitive spot inside his soulmate. “There we go, baby…” San purred, his sharp eyes darkening with desire. “I could make you come like this. Do you want that?”

“No…” Wooyoung gasped, his fists tightening on the sheets. “Stop messing with me, San! I just… I want _you._ ”

Gods, the Fates were cruel.

“You’ll have me,” San said finally, pressing a soft kiss to a particularly dark love bite on Wooyoung’s right thigh. “Just hang tight, okay?” He placed another kiss to his soulmate’s thigh, regretfully moving away to get himself ready. His hands were shaking as he rolled the condom on and he had to pause, exhaling shakily to get himself under control.

And he was almost successful, right up until Wooyoung wrapped his long legs around San’s waist, pulling him in close. Before San could pull his jaw off the floor from the sudden, delicious friction, the younger man grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him down for a deep, messy kiss. There was no sophistication to the kiss, it was all spit and teeth and more tongue than anything else but in that moment, it was the best kiss San had ever had. He could feel Wooyoung’s desperation for him, and his chest ached.

For this one night, Wooyoung was his.

“I’m going to go slow,” San said softly, carefully prying Wooyoung’s legs open so he had enough room to push in safely. “If you want me to stop, say so. I won’t be mad.”

“ _I’ll_ be mad,” Wooyoung hissed, “if you don’t hurry up!”

San’s eyes narrowed slightly, briefly, and he clapped a hand to Wooyoung’s outer thigh, raising an eyebrow when a surprised moan tumbled past his soulmate’s lips. “You’re into that, huh?”

“Shut up!” Wooyoung whined, face flushed with embarrassment and desire. “San, _please_.”

As much as he would have liked to explore _that_ kink a bit further, San was in no shape to deny his soulmate anything any longer. Unable to help himself, San dove in for a greedy kiss, using it to distract Wooyoung from the pressure of him pushing in inch by inch. He stopped as Wooyoung hissed, going only as fast as the other could handle, constantly checking in with him to see if he was okay. San wasn’t sure if Wooyoung was grateful for it or three seconds from kicking his ass if he didn’t get to fucking him.

Gently, as he bottomed out, San leaned down to bracket Wooyoung’s head with his forearms on either side of his head. “So… so beautiful, Wooyoung,” San whispered, peppering the Bengal’s neck with soft, loving kisses. Sweat beaded at his temples as he got flush with the realization that he was deep within his soulmate, the one who was so perfect for him. Beautiful, loud, insanely strange and vibrant… that was his soulmate, Jung Wooyoung. “Talk to me. You okay?”

“Holy shit,” Wooyoung breathed, his eyes squeezed shut. “It wasn’t like this the last time…”

“That good or bad?” San almost didn’t want to hear the answer.

In response, Wooyoung licked his lips as a smirk curled them - a deadly combination alongside his fucked out, flushed expression and mussed up hair. “It means you feel fucking incredible,” he explained, sucking on his bottom lip, tongue curling around San’s lip ring.

Dizzy from lust and reeling from seeing, hearing and _feeling_ this side of Wooyoung, San nearly lost it right then and there. Burying his head against his soulmate’s neck, the Black Cat grounded himself with Wooyoung’s scent. Strangely, he would’ve thought that the scent would’ve made things worse, made him wild and unbidden, but it was the complete opposite. With slow, careful rolls of his hips, San pressed tight and low to Wooyoung’s body, his breath dancing along the younger man’s ear.

“I want to hear you,” San whispered, not trusting his own voice to go any higher, “you want to forget? I’ll ruin you for everybody else.” This was dangerous, he was playing with fire, but he’d already been burnt; what else was there to lose?

“Everyone’s gonna hear,” Wooyoung protested, a choked moan punched out of his throat as the older of the two of them alternated between shallow and quick thrusts to slow and deep. The Bengal were-cat could feel San’s devilish smile against the flushed skin of his neck, his kisses turning into rough bites. There was going to be no question that Wooyoung wasn’t alone tonight, and the thought spurred San on further.

Words were largely forgotten, abandoned in favour of desperate kisses and even more desperate touches. San was getting greedier by the minute, swallowing up each and every one of Wooyoung’s moans with all-consuming kisses. Their beads of sweat mingled together as San pressed closer and Wooyoung kept him there with a tight wrap of his arms around San’s slender, sloped shoulders.

“Wooyoung,” San whispered, his voice thick with desire … and despite everything in him trying to hide it, love. “You feel amazing, I can’t… not much longer, I, — fuck!”

With a devilish grin of his own, Wooyoung had trailed his tongue along the outer shell of San’s earlobe, tonguing and suckling at the multitude of piercings that lined the cartilage. “Bet I can make you come before me,” he teased, smirking.

“You want to play dirty, huh?” Two could play at that game. Pulling away suddenly, San sat back on his heels and hauled Wooyoung’s waist up with his hands, digging his fingertips in hard enough to bruise.

“H-Hey, what are you — _fuck!_ ” the exclamation was music to San’s ears as he hiked up the pace. His grip slipped from the sweat that ran down from Wooyoung’s chest, digging in his knees and toes, thoroughly messing up the 1000 count Egyptian cotton sheets of Wooyoung’s dorm bed. “ _San!_ ”

An utterly possessive, low, guttural growl stamped itself to Wooyoung’s neck and San allowed himself the chance to bite and mark just at his jugular. It was risky, and it was something only mates were supposed to do, but San was too far gone. He was going to take for this night, do everything he’d wanted to do since he met this wild, mischievous, vibrant and beautiful boy. He leaned forward, nearly bending Wooyoung in half as he captured the younger’s mouth in passionate kiss, moving with such sinful grace that he could _feel_ his soulmate start to come undone.

“You’ve been so good for me…” San purred, licking his lips as he continued his maddeningly slow ministrations, almost languidly massaging the other’s prostate with his thrusts, “come for me, Wooyoung… let go, I know you want to … come on, baby, come on… let me feel you lose it on my _cock._ This is what you wanted, right? Let me give it to you…”

He was using everything he knew, every trick, every technique and tool in his arsenal to make Wooyoung come and San was rewarded by quite possibly the most beautiful sight he was ever going to see: his soulmate blissed out because of _him_. He worked Wooyoung through his climax, his thrusts slowing down until they were nothing but short rolls of his hips. “S-San…” he whimpered, eyes fluttering shut. “It’s too much … please?”

“Okay…” San choked out, so close himself but he’d given Wooyoung his word. Slowly, and with as effort as he could muster, San pulled out. He quickly snatched up some tissues from the bedside table, focusing on cleaning up the younger instead of his aching length. “Talk to me, Woo… you okay?”

“Holy fuck,” was all Wooyoung said in return, lips swollen and skin littered with hickeys. His chest heaved as he struggled to get his breathing under control, but was abruptly interrupted by his eyes snapping open and sitting up as straight as a board. “You didn’t come!”

San blinked back at him before flopping back on the bed with a groan, his tattooed hands covering his face. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, “you gave me a heart attack. I thought I’d _hurt_ you! H-Hey, what are you—” A blush spread like wildfire as he felt the bed shift, and felt the warmth of the other were-cat between his legs. “Y-You don’t have to —”

Wooyoung licked his lips, eyes bright with mischief. “My turn,” was all he said before he began to kiss and bite at San’s thighs, paying particular attention to the magical glyphs that were on the meatiest part. “You were fucking taunting me with these,” Wooyoung muttered before rolling his tongue along the darkening love bite, “you better believe that I’m going to make you _scream_. You’ve been … fuck, you’ve been so calm and I wanna hear what you sound like when you can’t hold on anymore.”

San’s hips bucked up involuntarily as a wet heat skirted across his throbbing cock, soon enveloping him completely. He had a death grip on Wooyoung’s sheets, a soft whimper escaping him when the Bengal took one of his hands and anchored it in his wild blond hair. “Not fair,” San whispered brokenly, fingers tightening in the golden strands.

“Pull harder,” Wooyoung instructed fiercely before he took all of San in his mouth. A choked moan pierced the suffocating air of Wooyoung’s dorm room and it took everything in San not to come in seconds. The feeling of his soulmate’s mouth on him, working him like he had an open manual to make him climax was too much. Knowing that this was the last time he’d feel it … San wanted to hold on as long as possible.

He didn’t, since as soon as he thought about denying himself the climax, Wooyoung slid his hands up San’s toned chest and pinched his nipples, twisting hard. It was a surprising move, and one that caught San so off guard that he came with a cry. He couldn’t even warn Wooyoung, but the Bengal stayed where he was, finishing San off with a smirk on his kiss-bitten lips.

“Got you.”

San’s brows knitted together as he struggled to process what had just happened, his mind foggy with the after-effects of what was the hardest and all-consuming orgasm he’d had. His grip in Wooyoung’s hair fell slack, and his eyes fluttered shut as his mind struggled to remember the process to breathe. He could feel Wooyoung’s hands clean him up with the rough material of fresh tissues, and he let a contented sigh leave his lips. Yeah, he could leave it like this.

Wooyoung’s gentle fingers curled around his soulmate earring and San involuntarily tensed. “I never got a good look at this before,” he murmured, peering close enough that San could feel his breath tickle his ear. Silence stretched as Wooyoung’s touch tightened for the briefest of moments, and a soft “fuck,” left his lips. “This is the other half of _my_ earring. I recognize these markings… San, are you— San!?”

As fear crept into his gut like an impending tsunami crashing in, San suddenly shifted into his Black Cat form and shot from the bed like a bat out of hell, escaping down the opened dorm room window and into the night. He could hear Wooyoung’s confused exclamations through the opened window, but San couldn’t bear to stay. He pushed his little body as far as it could go, eventually stopping in a dark alley and curling up as tight as he could behind a cluster of trash cans under the bright moonlight.

The Fates were cruel, but not as cruel as San had been to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well shit I made myself sad with this


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One year ago, Wooyoung had his fortune told that he would meet his soulmate, a black cat. What he didn't expect was for life to turn this much upside down. He knew this much - he had to find San and they needed to talk.

When his parents had decided to throw an insanely lavish Halloween party last year, the last thing Jung Wooyoung expected was to get his fortune read by a spooky fortune teller and have the woman’s soulless eyes bore into his soul. He remembered the woman explaining that she was a Black Cat, and her black magic was based in divination, but it came at a price. That price had been paid by his parents for the evening, and Wooyoung had been quite honestly convinced it was all a load of bullshit. The only reason he even entertained getting a reading was because Sooyun thought it would be fun and in time with the spooky season.

He could remember the woman’s icy cold touch as she touched his left ear, where an earring had been affixed for as long as he could remember. Even his parents had said that he had been born with it. As it didn’t cause any harm or seem to be detrimental to his mental or physical health, they all largely ignored it. Wooyoung had always been curious as to why he had half an earring, and what it meant. He’d gotten his friends to take as close of a picture as they could when he was human, and when he was in his Were-Cat form, as the earring was affixed to his tail when he changed forms. The pictures, of course, were unhelpful and Wooyoung eventually decided to forget about it existing at all.

That was, until the elderly Black Cat took his earring in her wrinkled hand and pressed on it. Her yellow eyes glinted in the dark and Wooyoung wondered if she was trying to hex him or something; he’d heard Black Cats could do that. “You have been marked by Fate,” she had said, her voice gravelly and soft. “You will meet your soulmate soon … skittish, burned by the past, scorned by the present. The light will shine on the shadows that creep up on you. They will bring this light to you.”

He could remember how Sooyun scoffed and said that Wooyoung already had his soulmate, _her_. Wooyoung had, in the moment, agreed with her but there was something in the old woman’s tone that pierced right through him, straight to his core. “You’re saying my soulmate has the other half of this earring? This exact one?”

“Yes,” the old woman confirmed, rolling her fingers along the broken heart charm. “Black Cats are omens, yes, but not all bad. The road to a new beginning is paved with the remains of the past.” She nodded again. “Black Cats wander, and the Fates bring them down to Earth with a soulmate. They are your other half, and you are theirs.”

At the time, he’d chalked it up to a very convincing actress and went about his life. Nothing happened in the months following the party … until the onset of the spring semester when he met San. Or more accurately, when he ran San over in the middle of the courtyard while on his way to his English class. In a sea of bright colours and tired University students, San stood out draped all in black and his purple eyes sharp with curiosity.

Wooyoung remembered how his heart leapt into his throat when he locked eyes with the other man, the happiness that rushed through him when he heard that San was going in the same direction as him. The months leading up to their meeting had been tense, not only due to university responsibilities, but with Sooyun, who had become increasingly strange as of late. Meeting someone like San, who felt like a breath of fresh air, was the exact relief he needed.

He’d wondered if it was his fault things were so awkward with Sooyun, that he was spending too much time studying, too much time at the jewellery store he managed for the family down at the south end of the city…

… turned out that the problem hadn’t been him at all.

He’d always been impulsive, impish, loud. Sooyun would always try and change that about him, try and fit him into a box much like his father had tried to. He’d told himself that he _did_ have to get his act together, act more grown up, do those things that she said. But he had always been conflicted about it; was it really the way to do things? The others would say they supported him and his relationship with Sooyun, but Wooyoung wasn’t stupid; he could see how they tensed when she came by, how their postures changed to something more protective when she would make those passive comments.

Everything had changed once San showed up. For a moment, Wooyoung had been concerned that bringing someone he’d only known for a couple of days to his group of friends that he’d known almost all his life was a risk but San took to the group dynamics like a fish to water. He played along with Wooyoung’s strange jokes, was always ready to playfully bully Seonghwa with him, and honest to god, Wooyoung never really got restorative sleep from his naps until San came along.

Looking back, it all made sense: the fortune teller’s vision, how perfectly San fit into his life…

Wooyoung flinched as he ran outside his dorm, dressed hastily in a pair of sweatpants, an old t-shirt that might have been San’s, and the loosest sneakers he had that could be yanked on without having to be tied. His mind was racing; he could barely process what had just happened even though he’d been there through it all. Desperate and needy for San after breaking up with Sooyun, Wooyoung gave into his feelings and begged San to take him. Heat rushed to the Bengal’s face as he ran through campus in the late hours of the night, cursing to himself - how did he think he would be able to find a _black cat_ in the _dark?_

Fucking hell Jung Wooyoung use your head.

He stopped when his lungs began to ache, and frowned, hunching over to rest his palms on his thighs. There was no way he was going to find San now, not when he was going to be cloaked in the nightfall and small and fast enough to know where to hide in the smallest areas. Groaning, Wooyoung plopped down on a bench and ran his hands through his sweat slicked hair. He winced, belatedly remembering how thoroughly he had gotten fucked mere minutes before.

God, what a mess.

That wasn’t how he wanted to be with San, how he wanted to have him in his bed, but in the moment, he wasn’t thinking. All he wanted was to have the one person that knew him inside and out, that wouldn’t judge him be with him when the ground had been cut out from underneath him. He just had to go and open his mouth about Soulmates, too. San hadn’t been shy about his stray cat status, about how much he appreciated meeting Hongjoong and the others, how much he treasured his friendship with Wooyoung, and Wooyoung just had to open his big mouth and ruin it all.

Slowly and carefully, Wooyoung pulled himself up off the bench. He would find San, and they would talk. They _had_ to talk. But … there was no way he was going to find the Black Cat now. He’d have to try again in the morning. Maybe he could get the others to help? Oh, God. He was not looking forward to explaining this to them.

The bracelet on his right wrist caught the moonlight, and Wooyoung felt his chest ache. His heart was beside itself, beating loudly not only from the sex and his impromptu sprint, but from finally being so close with the one he was meant to be with. “Fucking fortune teller, fucking _me_ ,” Wooyoung muttered as he walked back to his dorm building. “Why the hell did I say that?” He frowned. “Why did… he look so scared?”

Despite hoping that the answers would come in the morning after a fitful sleep, Wooyoung was no closer to figuring out anything. First things first, he knew he had to talk to the others. They met every morning before the first class of the day to have breakfast, and despite finals having passed, this morning was going to be no different. Immediately upon sitting down, six pairs of eyes were on him. Damn them and their sensitivity to his mood, Wooyoung thought.

“Woo, what’s wrong?” Seonghwa asked, his voice soft.

“I don’t know where to start,” Wooyoung muttered.

“The beginning?” Mingi suggested, jumping a bit when Wooyoung glared at him. “What? I’m serious.”

Hongjoong leaned forward, a concerned expression on his face. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to, Woo. We’re going to be here for you regardless.”

Sighing heavily, Wooyoung nodded and put his face in his hands to try and figure out how to even begin explaining the last 24 hours. “I broke up with Sooyun,” he started, swallowing tightly as surprised gasps rippled throughout the table. “She’d been… dating me to find out the pass code to the safe of the store I run … she was gonna … sell the loose gems we had in the safe so she and this guy could leave the city.”

“I fucking knew it!” Yeosang hissed. “I knew she was being weird.” He paused, realizing his outburst. “Sorry, Woo.”

Wooyoung shook his head. “It’s okay. I should’ve seen it coming. I was… really stupid.”

Jongho frowned. “You trusted her. You weren’t stupid for that.”

“How’d you even find that out? Did she try and run a heist on the store?” Yunho asked, raising an eyebrow.

Wooyoung shook his head. “No… she came over yesterday and we started talking. She started… asking some really blunt questions about the vault and the combination. I told her I couldn’t tell her and she seemed really surprised. She kept saying ‘why isn’t it working? That stupid Black Cat said the hex worked.’”

Seonghwa and Mingi shared a long look before Seonghwa turned to Wooyoung. “She had a Black Cat _hex_ you?” he asked carefully. “To get you to tell her the information she needed?” Seonghwa was in disbelief.

“Yo, you should ask San about it,” Mingi suggested, frowning. “He’s a Black Cat. He’d know all about that stuff.”

Wooyoung flinched and shook his head. “I can’t. I fucked it up with him. I … look. I’m not proud of this, but…” He chewed his lip and looked down at his coffee. “I called him after I broke up with Sooyun, after I told my parents what happened … I was … I wasn’t … I just wanted him, and we…” He groaned and put his face in his hands. “But that’s not… that’s not what made him leave. I …” Wooyoung gulped and gripped his cup. “He has the other half of my earring. I asked him about it and he freaked and bolted. I haven’t seen him since.”

“That’s… a lot to unpack,” Hongjoong said as the silence stretched on uncomfortably. “And. Um. For privacy’s sake, I won’t say anything about … what you and San did. That’s between the two of you. But… what about the earring?”

Seonghwa blinked. “Your soulmate earring? I thought you didn’t believe in it.”

“I _didn’t_ ,” Wooyoung muttered, downing a large gulp from his coffee cup, “but he had it. I saw it up close and it’s … it’s the other half of it. He’s a Black Cat, and the fortune teller said my soulmate is a Black Cat with the other half of this earring.” He groaned and hung his head. “I hate this. Only I would manage to fuck up something that was supposed to be a sure thing.”

“I don’t think it was ever a ‘sure thing’,” Jongho said, tilting his head. “Being Soulmates doesn’t mean there’s never going to be problems, that it’s going to be sunshine and rainbows forever. It’s like any other kind of relationship, right? You learn about each other and you grow. Same as everybody else.”

Mingi grinned a little and rubbed under his nose. “Yeah, soulmates means Fate got sick of your shit and pushed someone in front of you that you ran over in front of the entire student body because you weren’t gonna find them otherwise.”

“Shut up,” Wooyoung whined. “What do I do? He bolted in his cat form. I can’t find him and his phone’s off.”

Seonghwa looked thoughtful as he chewed on a piece of melon from his fruit cup. “You know him better than the rest of us, Wooyoung, but… we can help you look for him. He did mention a couple of places he frequented, right?”

“Hwa’s right,” Hongjoong said, nodding. “We’ll ask around if anyone’s seen him and see what turns up. But you know him way better than us. Retrace what he’s said and maybe you’ll find him. Or maybe you know people he knows. You know?”

“R-Right,” Wooyoung said shakily. He hadn’t been expecting the possibility of there _being_ possibilities in finding San. He’d almost given up. He stood up quickly and downed the rest of his coffee, tossing the cup into the recycle receptacle. “I’ll text you guys if I find anything!”

Hongjoong stared as Wooyoung took off like a shot. He glanced at the others. “What K-Drama did we just get wrapped up in?”

“Don’t know,” Yeosang said as he sipped his tea, “but let me know when the season finale of you and Hwa not admitting your feelings to each other airs.”

~ * ~

The head of steam he had with his new plan died as soon as Wooyoung realized that although San talked a lot about his hyungs, Hoseok and Jungkook, and where he frequented, but he never really spoke in specifics. It was always ‘I was with Hobi-hyung at JK-hyung’s workplace’ or ‘we were eating by the park’ which was maddeningly unhelpful. Frustrated, Wooyoung ran a hand through his wild blond hair, trying to get some semblance of order to it.

_“I work at Moon part time. Gotta hustle for that tuition money.”_

San’s voice wafted into his head like a kite’s tail that was just within his grasp and Wooyoung’s eyes widened. Quickly, he hailed down a cab and gave them directions to _Moon_ , his heart beginning to race. Maybe, if he was lucky, San would be working a shift and he could get him to talk on his break. Or maybe he could ask Kim Seokjin if he knew how to contact San.

(Christ, listen to me. Sure, let me ask _Kim Seokjin_ if he knows where my soulmate is.) Wooyoung put a hand over his face as the taxi slowed to a stop. “Thank you!” He paid his fare and hurried out of the cab, belatedly realizing by the look on the hostess’ face that he was _not_ dressed for _Moon_. “Um, miss. I apologize for this but do you know if San is working today?”

The hostess raised a fine eyebrow. “San? Do you mean Choi San?”

“Yes! Is he working today? He forgot something important and I wanted to bring it to him,” Wooyoung explained, hoping the hostess would ignore the gaping hole in his logic.

“No.”

Wooyoung blinked. “Do you know when he’d be working next?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Please? I’m a friend.” Wooyoung was getting desperate. “My name is Jung Wooyoung. Could I at least leave a note?”

“No.”

Wooyoung groaned and put a hand over his eyes. He understood why the hostess was being so obstinate, but if she could just _not_ , he’d be grateful. As he moved his hand from his face, his eyes widened as he saw a young man with tattoos and draped all in black come out of the restaurant. It was San.

Despite himself, Wooyoung reached out to grab San’s shoulder and turn him around with a surprising amount of strength. “San! I’m — … you’re not San.”

The young man was staring at him with wide, doe eyes that were a bright yellow/green and definitely not the sparkling purple that San’s were. He raised a hand when the blond haired man behind him let out a rumbling, warning growl that caused Wooyoung’s hair at the back of his neck to stand on their ends. “Tae, it’s okay,” the man said, realization dawning on his features. “I know who this is. — Do you mind coming with me Wooyoung? I’m Jungkook.”

“Jungkook?” Wooyoung echoed in disbelief as he trailed after the dark-haired man. He couldn’t believe it; he wasn’t able to find San at _Moon_ , but he managed to find one of San’s hyungs? Maybe Fate wasn’t a complete bitch after all. He was ushered into the back of a gunmetal grey Mercedes SLK 350 and felt horrendously out of place despite the fact that he wasn’t exactly middle-class. He could see Taehyung’s sharp-eyed gaze piercing through the rearview mirror and feel it in his soul.

The ride was awkward, and it only got even more awkward as Jungkook and Taehyung brought him to their apartment in the glitzy Gangnam district. He must have looked like some kind of bum they picked up off the street as although Jungkook was dressed fairly casually, Wooyoung could recognize that he was dressed head to toe in IISE Seoul, a famous Korean fashion brand. Jungkook gently guided him to sit down in the living room and sat across from him while Taehyung stared daggers at him from the kitchen as he prepared some tea.

“I’m sorry about grabbing you like that,” Wooyoung apologized, bowing deeply. “I thought… you looked a lot like San from the side and I’ve been trying to find him for the last… I don’t know, 24 hours? I don’t know what day it is right now. He just vanished on me and I don’t know if he’s okay or not. It was my fault.”

Jungkook’s brows furrowed together as he frowned, but he listened quietly. “He vanished on you? What do you mean it’s your fault?”

There was something calming about talking to Jungkook, Wooyoung realized. He was quiet, reserved and reminded Wooyoung a lot of Seonghwa. “I said that he had the other half of my earring and he turned into his cat form and bolted. I must have freaked him out… I made things pretty awkward after my girlfriend tried to hex me to steal from me.” He sighed and rubbed his face. “I guess if you don’t know where he is, I could ask you about that…”

For a moment, Wooyoung caught the surprise and realization that crossed Jungkook’s delicately handsome features. Taehyung had brought over the tea, but neither of them were focused on it, which caused the Tiger were-cat to briefly huff. “Your girlfriend tried to _hex_ you? To _steal_ from you?” he asked quietly.

“Huh? Yeah…” Wooyoung nodded. “She kept asking me for the vault’s combination and was annoyed when ‘it didn’t work’ and I wouldn’t tell her. But — Jungkook, do you know where San is? I need to talk to him. I’m afraid I ruined things between us.”

Jungkook carefully picked up the cup of tea in front of him and pressed it into Wooyoung’s hands, curling his fingers around the warm mug. “So San’s your Soulmate,” he murmured, sounding as if this answered everything. “I see. Now I see why he said that to Hobi-hyung … — Wooyoung, I don’t know where San is right now, but I can find him. But there’s something I want to ask you first.”

Feeling his heart begin to beat out of his chest as he raised his eyes to meet Jungkook’s yellowy-green gaze, Wooyoung nodded. “Yes, of course.”

“What are you hoping to achieve by talking to San? Being Soulmates isn’t some magical cure to whatever is going on between the two of you,” Jungkook said, picking up his own cup of tea and taking a sip. “You just broke up with your girlfriend. This isn’t … some kind of rebound thing, is it?”

“ _What?_ No!” Wooyoung knew where Jungkook was coming from, but still, it hurt to hear it laid out so bluntly. Never mind that the ‘rebound’ part already happened but Jungkook didn’t need to know about _that_. “I don’t… I don’t know what’s going to happen with us but I want to talk to him to clear the air, put it all out there. What happens after that, that’s… I don’t know. I won’t know until we talk. You know? Neither of us have the whole story.”

Jungkook was silent, and he glanced over at Taehyung, who raised his eyebrows back in a silent question. “I’ll help you find him,” Jungkook said finally, setting the cup of tea down on a coaster. “Let’s exchange phone numbers; when I find him, I’ll call you.”

“You sure about this, Jungkookie?” Taehyung asked, glancing distrustfully over at Wooyoung.

“I’m sure. This actually answers a lot of questions,” Jungkook replied as he carefully took Wooyoung’s phone and input his phone number, the younger were-cat doing the same when given Jungkook’s phone. “Whatever you were doing, go back to it. You won’t be able to find San if he doesn't want to be found.”

Wooyoung hated to hear it, but he knew the older were-cat was right. Nodding, Wooyoung rose and gave a deep bow. “Thank you, Jungkook.” He bowed deeply to Taehyung. “And I’m sorry for startling the two of you. I was… it wasn’t right of me.”

Taehyung shook his head slightly, his own soulmate earring jingling softly. “It’s all right. Seems there’s a lot more going on here than I thought.” He gave a wry smile. “I hope things work out between the two of you.”

“Thank you,” Wooyoung said, bowing again deeply. “Even if we’re not … if we’re not like _that_ , I just want him with me. It’s selfish, I know.”

“No, I know the feeling,” Taehyung said with a small smile. “Get out of here and get some rest; you look like the walking dead.”

“R-Right. Thank you.” Wooyoung bowed again and headed off, feeling both lighter on his feet and a weight beginning to settle in his chest.

~ * ~

It was about three days later when Jungkook called, giving Wooyoung an address and telling him to come at exactly 6:00 p.m. Just in case the directions led him to somewhere where he shouldn’t look like a scrub, Wooyoung picked an outfit that could pass for anywhere that wasn’t a black tie affair. Absently, he rubbed his wrist where his friendship bracelets (the one that paired with San’s, and the one that paired with the others) and took a deep breath.

The address that Jungkook had given him led to a building with the words _BANGTAN PHOTOGRAPHY_ emblazoned on the awning in stylish font. Carefully, Wooyoung pushed open the door and stepped inside, looking around with an intense amount of curiosity. Jungkook was waiting for him, leaning against the counter. “Yo,” he said, raising a hand.

“Evening,” Wooyoung greeted, hoping his voice didn’t sound as rough as it felt. “Is he…?”

Jungkook nodded and jerked his head to the back. “He’s in the backroom. I told him to come by as I needed help with something for a shoot tomorrow. He might be mad at me for this, but… I think this is for the best. You two need to clear the air.”

“Thank you,” Wooyoung said softly as he followed Jungkook to the backroom of the office, where San was absently fiddling with an old polaroid camera. His heart was in his throat as Jungkook knocked on the door, bringing San’s attention to them.

San’s eyes widened when he saw Wooyoung behind Jungkook and shot his hyung a confused and almost betrayed look. “I know why you told Hoseok-hyung about that job, Sannie,” Jungkook said softly. “You need to talk to him. Whatever happens, happens, but running away isn’t going to solve it. Take it from someone who used to run a lot.”

Frowning, San stared down at the camera in his hands and to Wooyoung’s surprise, nodded. “…you’re right,” he agreed quietly.

“Good,” Jungkook said, relaxing a bit. He turned to Wooyoung. “I’m going to be just outside the door so don’t kill each other.” He gave them both a nod and left, closing the door behind him.

If it was awkward before, it was a thousand times more awkward once it was just the two of them in what appeared to be the office break room. Quietly, Wooyoung slipped into the chair across from San and swallowed. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, gulping when San’s head snapped up in surprise. “What I said, what I forced between us, I’m sorry. I made things so awkward between us. I just … I’m sorry.” He chewed his bottom lip, a dark plink darkening across the plump skin. “I was just… so surprised to see that you had the other half of my earring. I thought that fortune teller was full of shit.”

San’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “Fortune teller?”

“It was last Halloween,” Wooyoung started, swallowing as he thought back to that night. “My parents hired this … she said she was Black Cat, and her specialty was divination. She, um, she said my earring was a half of a whole, that the other half belonged to a Black Cat. That fate decided it.” He absently played with the friendship bracelets on his wrist, swallowing again in an attempt to moisten his dry throat. “I didn’t think anything of it, I never really believed in that sort of thing, and I was with Sooyun, so … — but when I saw that you had it, I just … I just had to say something. But I freaked you out. I’m sorry.”

For a long moment, San was silent, and Wooyoung could see his tattooed fingers clutching at the polaroid camera so tightly that his knuckles were white. “I haven’t… been totally honest with you, Wooyoung,” San said quietly.

“What?” Wooyoung frowned, a pit forming in his stomach.

San stared down at his hands, releasing the camera as if realizing it might be a crutch for him to focus on instead of what he had to do. “Lee Sooyun contacted Hoseok-hyung to get a hex cast on you. She told him that her boyfriend was cheating on her and she wanted a truth hex cast on him to see if it was true. Hoseok-hyung was … he had his suspicions about the request, probably sensed that she was hiding something so he … asked me to get close to you and find out what was happening. If you were cheating on her, I’d cast the hex as requested. If not, we’d tell her to pound sand.” He looked up and caught Wooyoung’s eyes. “It was supposed to be JK-hyung, but… Hoseok-hyung thought he’d get too attached, that he wouldn’t be able to cast the hex if it turned out you were a cheat, but… I guess I wasn’t much better.”

“You… you were the one that was supposed to hex me? She really did get a Black Cat to hex me?” Wooyoung echoed in disbelief. “So the whole reason that you met me was … you weren’t really a student, were you?”

“No,” San admitted, shaking his head. “I was there to investigate you right in front of your face. I wasn’t… expecting you to have the other half of my soulmate earring.”

Wooyoung’s eyes widened. “You knew the entire time?”

San glanced away, frowning as he loosely folded his arms. “Hoseok-hyung told me that the reason I had my earring was because Fate decided to get in my business and give me a soulmate. I never… I didn’t think I deserved one. No one should be forced to be with me, you know? If I’m with someone, I want it to be because they want it. That we both want it… I didn’t want to put that pressure on someone.” He looked down at the table. “But… I’d been sent to cast a hex on my soulmate. I thought it was some kind of sick joke.”

“But… I don’t understand. If you didn’t … did you … the hex?” Wooyoung’s head was spinning.

“I was… investigating around the campus, trying to see what Sooyun was up to,” San started, clearing his throat. “I was… using my cat form; you won’t believe what people would talk about to a cat thinking that it doesn’t understand. At one point, Sooyun … she was meeting up with this guy, and she’d caught me earlier and brought me along. I thought that she figured out I was the Black Cat that was going to cast her hex, but… no, she had no idea. She really just brought this stray cat along.” San rubbed the back of his neck.

Wooyoung frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

San looked at him, frowning. “I was going to, then … you gave me the friendship bracelet and I realized that I couldn’t … it wasn’t going to… if you were going to find out, you shouldn’t have found out from me. I would’ve had to explain about the hex, and why I was following her and … it was better for you to find out yourself. I treasured our friendship so much I knew that… you had to find out on your own. That’s … that’s why I told Hoseok-hyung to tell the client that the hex was cast. I knew she’d try and get the information out of you and you’d know what she was really trying to do. I’m … I’m sorry, Wooyoung.” He looked away, swallowing to hide the shaky exhale. “You deserve to have a better soulmate than me.”

Dazed and reeling from the revelation, Wooyoung took a moment and lowered his head, staring down at the tabletop as his fingers anchored tightly into his hair. “I understand what you’re saying,” he said, his voice muffled by his arms, “San, I just …”

He felt a pair of hands touch his own, carefully pulling them away from their death-grip on his hair, and slowly cradling them. Wooyoung raised his head and found himself looking into San’s gorgeous purple eyes. “You don’t have to worry, Wooyoung,” he said quietly, “I’ll get out of your life after this. I just… JK-hyung’s right. I needed to tell you everything.” Gently, San ducked his head and pressed his lips to Wooyoung’s fingers, even that brief touch sending shockwaves through the younger were-cat. “I’ll always treasure our time together, Wooyoung. Here… I’ll … return this…”

San released Wooyoung’s hands to begin fiddling with the bracelet’s clasp. It was on his dominant hand, however, and he wasn’t nearly as deft with his left hand and was fumbling quite badly. San stopped, however, when Wooyoung suddenly placed a hand over his wrist and looked at the Bengal were-cat with a questioning look. Wooyoung’s other hand came around San’s neck and pulled him in for a long, slow, and deep kiss. When they parted, Wooyoung shook his head. “Keep it,” he whispered. “San, I want this with you, but… I can’t do it right now. Between Sooyun, and this, and … and you, I just… need some time. To process everything. Okay?”

“…Okay,” San said softly, nodding. It was clear he didn’t believe him however, and he soon found himself pulled in for another kiss, this one more insistent.

“Please don’t disappear on me again,” Wooyoung whispered desperately. “Promise me, San. I might… it might take a while, but I will come back. Please? Promise me?”

San’s eyes were indecipherable, clouded by emotions that Wooyoung couldn’t place. “…I promise,” he said finally.

Relieved, Wooyoung smiled weakly and hugged him from across the narrow table. “Thank you. I won’t keep you waiting long.”

“…take your time, Woo,” San said softly. “You’ve been through a lot.”

“So have you,” Wooyoung countered. “Please take care of yourself. I have Jungkook’s number now, I’ll tell on you, I swear.”

“…Mm.” 

~ * ~

San wasn’t an idiot. ‘Give me time to think about it’ was code for ‘I’m letting you down easy’. Honestly, he appreciated Wooyoung’s tact; he was letting him down easier than San would’ve let himself down. The summer passed into autumn without a word from Wooyoung, though he got sporadic updates from Hongjoong and the others in the group chat. It was indirect contact with Wooyoung, but it was enough for San; he’d given his word that he’d give the other were-cat space and he’d meant it.

Still, it hurt more than San thought it would not to hear anything from Wooyoung over the last five months. He must have cut a pretty pathetic picture to the rest of his hyungs, as he’d gotten invited to Jungkook’s birthday party on Halloween, a rather extravagant affair as Jungkook’s soulmate Taehyung didn’t do anything halfway. San spent most of the night curled up on Seokjin’s lap in his cat form, something that the supermodel and restauranteur was more than happy to indulge.

He was grateful for the invite, San was, but everything felt just a bit emptier without Wooyoung’s exuberant energy and he couldn’t bring himself to enjoy it. After Jungkook had opened his present (a beautifully crafted silver ring that San made himself inlaid with runes that would amplify Jungkook’s magic), San gracefully made his exit so as to catch up on his critical plan of wallowing alone in his apartment.

The next day was his birthday, which fell on All Saint’s Day. San rather enjoyed the morbidity of the date, spending his time wandering the graveyards still wearing his Halloween makeup. This year he still walked through the graveyard, but it was more to try and clear his head than anything else. He took a more straightforward path, almost speed walking through the graveyard and finding himself on the path towards a smaller public park.

San’s eyebrows raised as there seemed to be some kind of performance going on by a local theatre troupe; they were putting on Shakespeare’s _Hamlet_. Drawn to it, perhaps due to the memory of the time he and Wooyoung spent memorizing soliloquies, San walked over to the hill just behind where a collection of metal chairs were set up for the audience to sit down; wanting to watch but not wanting to be too close to the actors.

The actor playing Hamlet raised his hand dramatically, and a small, fond smile came to San’s lips as he remembered how he overacted to within an inch of his life just so he could hear Wooyoung’s high pitched peal of laughter.

“To be, or not to be--that is the question:  
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer  
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune  
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles  
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--  
No more--and by a sleep to say we end  
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks  
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation  
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--  
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,  
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come  
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,  
Must give us pause. There's the respect  
That makes calamity of so long life.  
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,  
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely  
The pangs of despised love..”

Out of the corner of his eye, San saw someone sit down beside him and reach for his hand. Figuring it was Jungkook or maybe even Hoseok, San turned to say he didn’t need birthday wishes but the words never came out of his mouth as he saw that it was Wooyoung. His hair was now a darker, honey blond with a gradient of darker brown in his undercut. It was wavier, a bit longer, somewhat closer in length to San’s and Jungkook’s than before and San had to stop himself from reaching out to thread his fingers through the soft strands.

Wooyoung’s expression was carefully blank as he gently held San’s hand in his, pressing his lips to the friendship bracelet on San’s right wrist, right on the halved Crown, holding the Black Cat’s purple-hued gaze in his own. It was a silent question: _will you have me?_

San couldn’t trust himself to talk, instead reaching out with his other hand to pull Wooyoung into a kiss, one that he hoped gave his heart’s answer: _always_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't the end for these two darlings! I have a Seonghwa/Hongjoong one shot planned that WooSan feature in pretty heavily if anybody's interested. 
> 
> I'd love to hear from all of you in the comments! How are you all doing? I hope you're safe and healthy and that this story was a nice little escape. <3


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